Renner v. Stafford, 921175
| Citation | 429 S.E.2d 218,245 Va. 351 |
| Decision Date | 16 April 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 921175,921175 |
| Parties | Sandra L. RENNER v. James H. STAFFORD, Jr., M.D., et al. Record |
| Court | Supreme Court of Virginia |
Warner F. Young, III, Fairfax (Hall, Markle, Sickels & Fudala, on brief), for appellant.
Daniel W. Cotter, Fairfax, for appellees.
Present: All the Justices.
With increasing frequency, we are confronted with appeals of cases in which a trial court incorrectly has short-circuited litigation pretrial and has decided the dispute without permitting the parties to reach a trial on the merits. This is such a case.
On March 27, 1991, appellant Sandra L. Renner filed a motion for judgment against appellees James H. Stafford, Jr., M.D., John H. Lowder, M.D., and their professional corporation, Winchester Women's Specialists. The plaintiff alleged that she had been Stafford's patient for "obstetric care." She asserted that during the course of treatment, he prescribed "the drug Danocrine for endometriosis."
The plaintiff alleged that she "did not have endometriosis" and that the defendants "deviated from the accepted standard of medical care in making the diagnosis of endometriosis and instituting a protracted course of Danocrine therapy." She further alleged that in "January 1989," she "developed pseudotumor cerebri (benign) and intracranial hypertension secondary to the Danocrine."
Additionally, the plaintiff alleged that as a proximate result "of the deviation from the accepted standard of medical care," she "developed intracranial pressure, diplopia, papilledema and headaches as well as other numerous acute and chronic problems." She also asserted that she had incurred "unnecessary medical expenses, pain and suffering, both physical and mental," for which she sought recovery in damages against the defendants.
In an "answer and grounds of defense," the defendants denied the material allegations of the motion for judgment. Later, after the plaintiff had responded to 62 requests for admissions propounded by the defendants, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment asserting the bar of the statute of limitations.
In that motion, the defendants noted that the plaintiff, on November 30, 1990, "appropriately" had filed a notice of claim pursuant to Code § 8.01-581.2, a provision of the Medical Malpractice Act. The defendants asserted, however, relying on the responses to requests for admissions, that the defendants undertook a continuous course of treatment of the plaintiff that ended at the latest "in the early part of November, 1988." Therefore, according to the summary judgment motion, the November 30, 1990 notice tolling the applicable two-year statute of limitations was untimely, and the action is barred.
According to the defendants, the "Plaintiff contends that her alleged injury from the Danocrine was not discovered until early January, 1989." Nonetheless, the defendants asserted, the statute of limitations began to run, at the latest, from a date in early November 1988, when plaintiff's Danocrine treatment ended.
Following a hearing at which the trial court considered the pleadings, the responses to requests for admissions, and the argument of counsel, the court granted the motion for summary judgment, finding "that the applicable Statute of Limitations has lapsed as to these Defendants." We awarded the plaintiff an appeal from an April 1992 order dismissing the action with prejudice.
A trial court may enter summary judgment only if no material fact is genuinely in dispute. Rule 3:18. The summary judgment rules and the discovery rules, while not intended to substitute a new method for trial when an issue of fact exists, were adopted to permit trial courts to end litigation at an early stage provided it clearly appears that one of the parties is entitled to a judgment in the case as made out by the pleadings and the parties' admissions. Carson v. LeBlanc, 245 Va. 135, 139-40, 427 S.E.2d 189, 192 (1993). But a trial court, in considering a motion for summary judgment, must adopt those inferences from the facts that are most favorable to the nonmoving party, unless such inferences are strained, forced, or contrary to reason. Id. Conversely, the trial court is not permitted to adopt inferences from the facts that are most favorable to the moving party.
On appeal, the defendants maintain that the trial court correctly granted the motion for summary judgment. They note that every action for personal injuries must be brought "within two years after the cause of action accrues," Code § 8.01-243(A). They point to Code § 8.01-230, which provides that a "cause of action shall be deemed to accrue and the prescribed...
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